Stewartia Health

[Mats Hagström]

I’m having some trouble keeping my Stewartia healthy.

I have young psedocamelias that are dying and a few monadelphas that are better but the foliage looks unhealthy. I’m in the Auburn Ca area which is 9b. It’s hot and dry here. The trees get about 6 hr of direct light and a few hours of filtered light.

I know Stewartia like water. When it’s above 90 I typically water twice a day. The trees are in perlite/coco coir (90/10) and I’m using Osmocote+ and Biogold.

I’m on well water that has 170ppm ph is 6.5.

At first I thought it may be a fungal issue. I have sprayed using copper and Infuse every other week X2 and added Cleary 336.

I have included a few pictures. These trees are in early development so not a big loss but I need to figure out what I’m doing wrong.


Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Mats H

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Looks like a watering issue and in one photo too much sun…

Best
DSD sends

 

[Mats Hagström]

Thank you for the input

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Reading your post, it sounds like too much of everything…too much sun, too much water, too much fert, too much fungicide. Even though they grow pretty aggressively, my Stewartia doesn’t seem to need full sun or heavy feed. It will dry out fairly quickly, but I have no idea how your soil behaves in your climate. My stewartia sits next to a Japanese maple; both in dappled light all day, in all akadama soil and watered in the same frequency, and it does fine. Good luck, they’re super cool trees.